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Big Switch releases SDN switching fabric for datacenters

The company says its Big Cloud Fabric will accelerate the adoption of hyperscale networking technologies.
Written by Natalie Gagliordi, Contributor

The four-year-old company Big Switch Networks got its start creating Open Flow-based controller software — but it seems as though the Santa Clara, Calif.-based business is rethinking its approach to networking with a new flagship product.

It's called Big Cloud Fabric, a bare metal SDN switching fabric for datacenters that the company says will help bring hyperscale networking technologies to a broader audience.

In a nutshell, the fabric makes networking more like programming by letting programmers allocate network resources with software.

Like Big Tap, the company's scale-out approach to monitoring fabric, Big Cloud Fabric leverages the company's Switch Light Operating System on physical leaf and spine bare metal switch hardware — boxes touted for their ability to bring cost and routing efficiency. It is designed for 10G and 40G scale and resiliency, with management available via OpenStack, Cloudstack, REST, CLI, or GUI.

Big Cloud Fabric is available in two editions; P-Clos, a physical leaf and spine fabric targeting a broad range of datacenter environments; and Unified P+V Clos, a physical plus virtual fabric where leaf, spine and vSwitches are controlled by the Big Cloud Fabric Controller.

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"The innovators in datacenter networking over the last five years have primarily been the hyperscale players such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon," said Big Switch CEO Douglas Murray. "Our mission is to bring this hyperscale design to datacenters worldwide, enabling companies to achieve improved operational efficiency and delivering on the original promise of SDN. Hyperscale networking focuses on simplicity and cost savings, and isn't simply a vision for the future – it is available today."

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